will think I’ve perverted you and come after me with one of those damn
guns.” She watched Beebo dab at her chin ineffectually, and then did it
for her. Beebo stood still and let her work, watching her face intently.
It was classically beautiful still, though lacking the pearly perfection
of a twenty-year-old’s. But the bone structure beneath was superb. Beebo
admired her ardently. “Think of all the poor girls who have to go homely
in the world to make one Venus Bogardus,” she said.
Venus smiled. “I don’t think it works that way, darling,” she said.
“Besides, a face is a temporary thing. After a while you find it doesn’t
work the same old spell any more.” She spoke soberly. “Then you have to
depend on what’s behind it ... if anything. Know who told me that?”
Beebo shook her head.
“Leo. My louse of a spouse,” Venus said, blinking. “He told me that when
I was seventeen, and I didn’t believe him. I do now.” She stepped back
and transformed the mood with a smile. “There, you look completely
innocent.”
“Thank you,” Beebo said.
“What for? The mop-up? Or the kiss?”
Beebo swallowed. “Both,” she said.
“Do you have to go, Beebo? Really?” Venus swirled away a few steps,
making Beebo want to dash after her. But she stood resolutely with her
hand on the door, still too unnerved to know how to behave. “Another
heavy date?” Venus asked.
“You might say,” Beebo said.
“Tell me the truth,” Venus said, looking at Beebo over her shoulder.
“Was it an ‘old friend’ last time? Or was it a girl?”
Beebo looked up at her slowly, her hand so hot and damp it slipped on
the knob. “A girl,” she said finally.
Venus took this shattering intelligence with serenity. “I thought so,”
she said. “I warn you, darling, I’m going to order spaghetti all week.
You’d better teach her to play solitaire.”
Beebo bridled at the teasing certainty of Venus’s attitude. “Then
Pasquini will have to make the deliveries,” she said flatly.
“All I can do is invite you,” Venus said. “I can’t make you come.”
The double meaning was not lost on Beebo. “I don’t think it would be the
best approach to Toby if you and I got involved,” she said edgily. She
was seeing more than Toby, however; she was seeing Paula. Gentle,
sympathetic, pretty Paula, so in love with her. Paula for whom she felt
such affection and desire. Paula, who told her to run from Milady
Bogardus. She wanted to be safe in Paula’s arms, not here in this
silk-lined trap where so many lovers were so neatly netted.
Beebo was deeply suspicious of Venus, anyway. What could such a woman
want but transient amusement? Was she gay at all, or just bored and
curious?
“Toby is the only human being I’ll ever love.” Venus said it. It would
be madness for Beebo to fall in love with her, knowing that. But she had
already learned from Paula that falling in love is not a deliberate act
at all. Sometimes the only way to fight it is to do as Paula said: run.
“I wish you’d stay a while,” Venus said.
Beebo gazed steadily at her, and then she opened the door and strode
out.
* * * * *
The boys looked up from the living room TV, Toby catching Beebo with
worried eyes and wondering what humiliations Venus had invented for her.
But the sight of his beautiful mother swishing after Beebo with her face
screwed into a scowl consoled him and his heart rose. He wanted Beebo to
teach him nonchalance; teach him to laugh and take Venus less seriously,
before Venus scared her off.
“Are you going already?” Toby said.
“How would you like to drive the route with me tomorrow, Toby?” Beebo
asked with a smile.
Toby threw his mother an uncertain glance, but she said, “Go on,
darling. Learn something about the mysterious pasta business.”
Toby grinned at her. He hadn’t smiled at her in so long that Venus
merely gazed at him with her mouth open, unable to answer until he had
turned back to Beebo.
“I’ll pick you up after lunch,” Beebo said. “Come on, Pat.”
“Just a moment,” Venus said. She caught Pat and put her arms around him,
boarding him like an empress her barge, and kissed him soundly on the
mouth. “There, darling,” she said alluringly. “Don’t wash your mouth for
days. Everybody will die of envy.”
Pat touched his lips and said a startled, “Thank you.”
“Mother, that’s repulsive,” Tony muttered.
“Just wait a year, dear, and it will all come crystal clear,” Venus told
him.
Beebo took Pat by the arm and propelled him into the kitchen. She was
dismayed at the effort of will it took to leave Venus behind.
“What a spectacular female,” Pat said, scrambling through the door with
her. “If I weren’t already in love with you, I’d fall for her.”
“And Jack would be best man,” Beebo quipped.
“You know, something tells me I _could_ fall for a girl,” he said,
hoping Beebo would pay attention.
But she only said, “Well, fall outside, will you?” She was afraid if she
didn’t get out fast, inertia would set in. The back door latch eluded
her skittery fingers.
“Turn it all the way right,” said a crisp female voice.
They saw the cook, still stirring her witch’s brew.
“Thanks,” Beebo said, and they got out at last with a grateful gasp. Pat
began to laugh, until he saw Beebo put her head in her hands while they
waited for an elevator.
“What’s the matter, honey?” he said. “Was Venus bitchy? I’ll go back and
throw something at her.”
“After the bussing you got?” Beebo said.
“How about you?” Pat asked softly. And when she didn’t answer, he put
his arms around her, enjoying the contact, standing with her till the
elevator arrived.
The wicked witch peered at them through the glass in the kitchen door.
* * * * *
Beebo was gloomy all the way home, answering Pat laconically.
“I didn’t even leave a note,” Pat lamented. “Jack will snatch me
bald-headed.”
“Never. He’s too fond of those blond curls.”
“Not so fond he won’t clobber me when we get home. It’s late.”
“You’ve got Jack and I’ve got Paula,” Beebo said, and they brooded about
it.
Beebo parked in front of Jack’s apartment. Pat looked up at his windows.
“The lights are blazing,” he reported. “And so is Jack, you can bet on
it.”
“I never saw him mad before,” Beebo said, looking at him quizzically.
Pat’s apprehension seemed silly to her.
“He’s not in love with you, my friend,” Pat said, and made her wonder at
the distortions—some good, some bad—that love could work in the lover.
“He probably called Marie. She’ll tell him you’re with me,” she said.
“That’ll only make him frantic. He thinks we’re a couple of lambs in the
lion’s den.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Beebo said. She had never felt so exhilarated and
confused and afraid and eager for God-knew-what in her life.
They hesitated with a common reluctance before the apartment door. “You
go first,” Pat said. “You’re the bravest. If he throws anything, so help
me, I’m going to run for it.”
Beebo chuckled at him, and then turned the cold brass handle. She opened
the door with a quick swing that revealed only the empty living room.
They walked in. “Jack?” they said together, and a pile of newspapers on
the sofa rolled over and sat up. Jack was very drunk.
“Hello, you two beautiful dolls,” he said. They looked at one another.
“Paula was here,” he told Beebo. “We got loaded together. If you don’t
want her, I’m going to marry her.”
Beebo picked up Jack’s empty glass and the bottle on the coffee table
and poured herself a shot. She gave the Scotch to Pat. “Have some. Jack
won’t mind, will you, _darling_?” She imitated the famous Bogardus
inflection.
“Why should I?” he said, eyes on Pat. “Did you run into Venus while you
were lunching at 21?”
“We went up to her apartment. She threw a pizza at Pasquini last night.”
“I heard all about it. Marie was celebrating when I dropped in. Well, it
must have been a jolly reunion.” He saw the smudge on Pat’s lips. “Looks
like the goddess and the gay boy are starting a new trend. You’re solid
lipstick from the nose down.”
Pat reproached Beebo instantly. “My God, why didn’t you tell me?” he
demanded.
“I wasn’t looking at you. I’m sorry.”
“Where’s yours?” Jack said, turning to her. “Or wasn’t this ladies’
day?”
“I wiped it off,” Beebo said touchingly, and Jack didn’t know whether to
believe her or not.
“Something for everyone,” he said. “She must be a Democrat. And what was
Patrick doing while you and Venus occupied the loveseat? Taking notes?”
“Watching TV,” Pat said casually. “With Toby. Her son.”
“I hope he was friendly,” Jack said.
“Very,” Pat replied, irritated by Jack’s jealousy.
“I’ll bet. Especially if you curled up in his lap.”
“He’s a nice little kid, Jackson,” Beebo said, surprised at him. Jack
was usually so patient and gentle and funny. “He’s just fourteen, very
mixed-up and very straight.” Jack’s spite amused her a bit and made her
sorry for him. She had never seen him hurt before. He was comical, but
the pain showed too and roused her affection for him.
“He’s a baby, and I don’t go for babies,” Pat said. “It’s illicit.”
“Oh, let’s be licit, by all means,” Jack said. “I can see the both of
you, sitting there watching Captain Kangaroo together. Just a pair of
Babes in Boyland.”
“Honest to God, Mann, you just bug the hell out of me!” Pat exploded in
sudden wrath.
“With pleasure. Till you scream for mercy,” Jack snapped.
“Jack, it was your idea that Pat give up his job,” Beebo said. “I took
him with me today for fun. It’s better than having him cruise the
streets all day. Admit it.”
After a pause, Jack said, “Okay. You’re a pair of worms ... but I’m a
dirty bird. I’m sorry. Call Paula, she’s frantic.”
Beebo hesitated so long that Jack looked at her and added, “In case
you’ve forgotten, the phone’s in the kitchen.”
“I know where it is.... I can’t call her. I don’t know what to say,”
Beebo said, and took down another shot like cough medicine.
Jack noticed her unsteady hands and brooding eyes. “Say, ‘Hello, Paula.
It’s me, Beebo. I’m home,’” he suggested. While his attention was on
Beebo, Pat went over and sat down quietly beside him on the couch. He
took care not to touch him.
Beebo folded dejectedly onto the floor. “I’m just not sure how I feel,
all of a sudden,” she said, letting her forehead drop into her hand.
“You didn’t fall for Toby, did you?” Jack said, ignoring the tentative
hand Pat put on his knee. “This seems to be the night to go straight.”
“Don’t make lousy jokes, Jack.”
“All right, pal. What happened with Venus? Did she really kiss you? Was
it that great?” True to form, he pushed his own chagrin aside a while to
worry about her.
“She hates everybody but Toby. She can’t even like herself, and Toby’s
the only human being she’ll ever love. How can such a lovely woman be so
messed up?” Beebo mourned.
“I see she’s messed you up a bit, too. Beebo, was it you who was
cheating tonight, and not Pat? Are you falling for Venus? Because if
you’re not, you’d go call Paula and laugh this off with her. You
wouldn’t care who Venus loved or why.”
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me,” Beebo said, crushed almost to despair by
the shame of it—of being a pushover for a professional temptress, and
too mesmerized by her even to phone Paula, whose love for her had become
a torment to them both.
Pat leaned against Jack cautiously and said, “Toby has seven yo-yos. We
watched the Lone Ranger.”
“Okay,” Jack said, smiling into space. “Hey, Beebo. Hey!”
She had rolled over suddenly on her stomach to cry, her face in the
scratchy rug. She shook her head to show she heard him but couldn’t
stop.
Pat clucked softly at her. “She couldn’t have cared less about that
woman till she checked out the boudoir. They were in there an hour.
Beebo came out transformed.”
Beebo wept into the stiff wool pile. “I thought I wanted to apologize.
But I really wanted.... Oh, God help me, I’m wild for her. She’s
fabulous.”
Jack lighted a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke over Beebo’s back.
“Well, that’s two nuts in the family: you and me. We fall in love with
the wrong ones as if it were in the by-laws.”
Pat turned to stare at him. “Who’s in love?” he said.
“I am. With you.”
Pat began to smile. “Why the hell didn’t you _say_ so?” he exclaimed.
“You never said so.”
“I was waiting for Beebo to go first. Misery loves company.”
“Come on, you nut, you know I’m crazy about you,” Pat said, smiling at
him. He leaned over. “Stick out your tongue,” he said. Jack obeyed.
“It’s black. You’re lying, you don’t love me at all.”
Jack began to laugh. Suddenly they forgot Beebo. It was the wonderful
selfishness of love that swept them out of her world into their own; the
selfishness that friends can only envy and forgive.
Beebo stood up after a while and wandered into the bedroom, wanting to
give them some privacy and herself some relief from their pleasure. She
lay down on the bed and saw Venus on the ceiling; shut her eyes and saw
Paula and felt the tears start again. She stuffed her face into the
pillow, beating it and crying Paula’s name. But when the fit passed, it
was still Venus for whom her limbs ached and body burned; Venus whose
face flamed in her brain and made her heart race.
Before she slept she thought of Jack and Pat, facing up to their love at
last, and knew she had to move out. Yesterday she could have gone to
Paula, even if it was premature. Today, there was again no place to go.
* * * * *
Beebo drove the truck to work with a thundering headache. She felt cut
off from home and help; cut out—halfway at least—from Jack’s life. Venus
wanted her to come back but only, Beebo was sure, to entertain herself.
Paula wanted her, but to smother her with a love she couldn’t honestly
accept, much as she respected and even wanted it.
At the shop she handed Venus’s autograph to Pete Pasquini. “Something
for your memory book,” she said darkly.
He looked at it disinterestedly. “So how come you’re so cheerful this
morning? Didn’t she throw nothing at you last night? She got a good
right hand, that one.”
“She said to tell you she’s sorry,” Beebo said, refusing to look at him
while she worked.
“Yeah? I think you’re the one who’s sorry. You didn’t do so good, hm?”
Beebo lifted a heavy can of peeled tomatoes, almost persuaded to heave
it, when Marie’s voice broke in. “Beebo—a visitor. A young lady.”
Beebo put the can down, and a hand to her head. _Paula. Holy God! I
can’t face her._ But she had to. She walked slowly to the front of the
store, aware that Pete was trailing her at a discreet distance.
A tall dark-haired girl wheeled around and took off a pair of showy
sunglasses. “Hello, Beebo,” she said. It was Mona.
Beebo could find nothing to say. Even “hello” was too much of a
courtesy.
“I want some groceries. Over there on the counter—I’ve got most of them.
I’m taking them to Paula. She didn’t feel much like going out today ...
for some reason.”
The thought of Paula, defenseless against Mona, was enough to crowd
Beebo’s reluctance to see her little redhead right out of her mind.
“I’ll take them over. I was going to see her at lunchtime anyway,” she
said.
“I’m sure it’ll come as a surprise to Paula,” Mona observed, smiling at
a display of spinach noodles.
Pete heard it and laughed his oily mirth to the canned fruits in the
next aisle. Beebo wanted to strangle him. She shoved Mona’s five-dollar
bill back at her and put the food for Paula on a shelf behind the
counter. Mona had that high color on her face brought up by the
excitement of willful malevolence. “I hear you and Pete are getting to
be regular cronies,” she said in a syrupy voice. “Isn’t he a ray of
sunshine, though?”
“You ought to know. He’s your sunshine, not mine,” Beebo said briefly.
“Pretty noble of you to pay for the groceries,” Mona said, sliding the
bill back into her purse. “On your salary.” She gave Beebo a provocative
stare that reminded them both of the night they met at the Colophon. A
warm feeling arose in Beebo that was strictly physical and angered her.
Mona slunk down Pete’s aisle and Beebo heard them murmuring together.
From the back of the shop she could see Pete making animated gestures as
he told Mona something. Marie came out of the kitchen a minute to glance
at them. “Ain’t that a pretty sight?” she said in a caustic whisper to
Beebo. “The ‘Happiness Kids’ Jack calls ’em. They was made for each
other, them two.”
Beebo had to grin at the spunky little Frenchwoman.
Pete didn’t let Mona leave till he heard the motor of Beebo’s truck
starting in the delivery yard. Beebo was backing out when he caught her.
He put his head in the cab, forcing her to stop.
“Well?” she said impatiently.
“Bogardus just calls in,” he said. “For tonight—lasagna. You can
deliver; I want no more in the face.” He waited for her reply, but she
was gazing through the windshield, seeing nothing but that face, that
face. So fair. So unfair! Pete slapped her knee and made her start. “You
alive?” he said.
“I hear you.”
Pete squeezed her knee—the kind of grip known as a horse bite. It hurts
and it tickles at the same time. Beebo wrenched her leg away and the
truck lurched backward. Pete leaped agilely out of the way, laughing at
her disgusted curse.
She drove off fuming, wondering what it was about him that made her
think, when they met, that he never laughed. She would damn well quit,
whether she had another job or not. But then she saw herself, jobless
and homeless at one stroke. Everything had seemed so right and easy just
a few weeks ago. Everything now seemed bewilderingly bleak.
* * * * *
She spent an hour with Paula at lunchtime, trying to explain by fits and
starts how she had made friends with Toby, talked to Venus about him,
and got home late, too tired to call.
“I’m sorry,” Beebo said, her voice soft with embarrassment. “That was
plain selfishness. Please eat, honey; I brought you all this good food.”
“Because Mona Petry told you I was staying at home today.” Paula put a
bite in her mouth as if it were a ball of cotton. There was little more
said, and the silences between words became unbearable. They did not
make love, they didn’t laugh. Beebo’s lapse of the previous night hung
between them like a fog. She was almost too inhibited when it was time
to go to kiss Paula. At last she leaned over and gave her a shy peck on
the cheek. Paula accepted it with solemn dignity, but would not return
it.
“May I see you tonight?” Beebo said.
“If you think you can put up with my mood.”
“I’m afraid the mood is my fault. Let me come over, please, Paula.”
Paula gave her a faint smile. “I won’t be very nice to you,” she said.
It was the first of many quiet cool nights, when Paula’s intense desire
for Beebo, and Beebo’s unadmitted desire for Venus, kept them restrained
and doubtful with each other.
* * * * *
Beebo picked Toby up the next day and spent the afternoon with him. He
turned into a handy helper, carrying orders with her and keeping her
busy with his talk. He was interested, as a child five years younger
might have been, in the panorama of the city, especially the areas that
were new to him. Though he lived there much of the time, he saw very
little of New York.
He would fire a broadside of questions at Beebo and leave her wallowing
in his wake, searching for answers, while he hurried on to set up the
next bunch. Fortunately, it seemed more important to him to be able to
ask than to get answers. Beebo didn’t want to disappoint him with her
ignorance.
They became quite good friends in the following few weeks, and to
Beebo’s surprise, they accomplished it without any sideline coaching
from Venus. Venus, in fact, stayed out of sight, though she kept on
ordering from Marie Pasquini. And Beebo, knowing as Toby did not, that
Venus was sacrificing her pleasure for his sake, was grateful to her.
Beebo dreaded facing her, even though it seemed inevitable sooner or
later. And when it happened, Beebo foresaw her relationship with Paula
going down the drain; her friendship with Toby smashed; and her
self-respect, already slipping, destroyed completely.
It was something to be spared the encounter for a while. Everything in
Beebo’s life felt very temporary and precarious to her. But at least she
had a breathing space, a time to test her feelings before they were
exposed to others.
Alone, she was miserable with the problems of where to live, who to live
with, how to control her urgent new emotions. But with Toby, she forgot
a little and studied his troubles instead. They kidded each other and
they laughed a lot. And they talked. At first it was mostly about
guns—Toby’s forte; or horses—Beebo’s. Boy talk. Getting-to-know-you
talk. The necessary preliminaries to a heart-to-heart. And it did Beebo
as much good as it did Toby.
When they first met, Toby had blurted some awkward and ugly things to
Beebo about his life with Venus. He seized upon her empathy for him and
used it brashly because for all he knew he would see her once and never
again. And it might be years before somebody else came along who seemed
able to understand it. It had to be someone Toby instinctively liked and
respected or it wouldn’t ease his troubled young heart to bare it. So
Beebo was special and he had grabbed her and said too much too fast.
So he back-pedaled into gun-talk, horse-talk, horseplay, and finally
friendship, now that he could approach it more slowly. A little at a
time, he unbent with her. He told her about the girls he knew in
Bel-Air, California, where they lived when Venus was working in a film.
“I love it out there,” he said. “We have five horses. Leo rides with me.
You’d love it. Say, maybe you could come out and take care of them for
us. You know all about it from your dad. It’s too bad other girls are so
square. You know, I took one riding once, and she was scared to death.”
“You just got the wrong one,” Beebo said. “Lots of girls like to ride.”
“Not the ones I know,” he said. “Or if they like to ride, they don’t
like me.”
“You haven’t looked around enough.”
“It’s embarrassing,” Toby said. “The dumb ones can’t talk to you about
anything. And if you find a decent one, you can’t talk to _her_. It’s
awful.” He smiled ruefully while Beebo laughed at him, and then added,
“Why can a guy talk to other guys but not to girls?”
“You talk to me,” she said.
“You’re different,” Toby said, with no inkling that he might have
scraped a sore spot. He meant it as a compliment and she took it that
way. “I don’t think I’ll ever love a girl, Beebo. You can’t trust them.”
“You think they’re all like your mother,” Beebo told him.
“They are.”
“No more than all men are the same.”
“According to my mother, all men are dirty dogs. That includes me.
Sometimes I think the reason she named me Toby was because it makes me
sound like an alley cat. Toby the Cat, and Leo the Lion. What a zoo she
lives with. I wonder why she didn’t name me Fido. She treats me like a
hound most of the time.”
“Hey, buddy,” Beebo said. “Maybe she’s mixed up but she’s still your
mother. You know what we talked about that day when I was there? How
much she loves you. She cried because you don’t believe her.”
Toby pressed his lips together, unwilling to concede a single virtue to
Venus. “My name isn’t Bogardus,” he said finally. “It’s Henderson.”
“Your mother loves you, Toby Henderson.”
“My father lives in Chicago. Were you ever there? He runs a dairy
processing plant in Gary, Indiana. I’ve never met him and I never want
to.”
Beebo was shocked. After a moment she said, “Well, maybe you can’t love
somebody you don’t know, even if he is your father. But aren’t you
curious?”
“Oh, he’s probably a dirty dog like the rest of us. At least if I never
meet him, I can pretend he’s something better.”
Beebo felt a stinging sympathy for him. “My father means a lot to me,”
she said.
“How come you don’t live with him, then? You said he lived in Wisconsin.
Did you run away, Beebo? You’re awful young to be on your own here. How
come?”
He had scored a bull’s eye. She wondered how many years of lonely
introspection it had cost Toby to become that perceptive; that quick to
see the truth beneath the social tricks.
“I had some tough problems, Toby,” she said. She was suddenly so grave
that he retreated from the subject, afraid of hurting her. Beebo was
thinking what it would do to him to know that she was a Lesbian; how
desperately he would worry about her and his mother.
“I’m not the dope Mom thinks I am,” he declared. “You can talk to me.”
“No, you’re no dope, but I am, for running away. And I’ll tell you
something, buddy. Fathers are something special. Even yours.”
“Sure. He and Mom got together and manufactured me. Something special. A
gorilla could have done the job better, Mom says. Or a test tube.
Sometimes I think that’d be okay—a test tube. Then I’d never even have
to know his name.”
Beebo felt a little like crying. But it would ruin her prestige with
him. She swallowed and said, “He must write to you. Send you birthday
presents, and things.”